When did you leave your child alone at home overnight?

[bendmeoverbackwards]

Is there any guidance for this or just depend on the child?

Thanks all. To those who have left their’s at 16 ish, are they competent cooks?

I mean honestly I’d moved out at 17 so though saying they would only leave their 16/17 year olds for one night max just seems a bit weird.

Saying that I wouldn’t leave a 14/15 year old alone but once they are 16 I’d expect them to be perfectly capable of being home alone or with friends for a weekend or whatever. I’d feel I failed if they where not capable of looking after themselves for a mere weekend at that age.

Surely it depends if your children are actually happy to be left alone? Some are at 15, some not until 17 and that's ok

We were going to leave our for the first time last night (15 and 17) but didn't for various reasons but they would have been fine with it because we told them what our plans were.

My daughter was left alone at 16 when we went away for a couple of nights. She had a friend stay with her for one of the nights. The place was absolutely immaculate when we got back! She was quite responsible and mature though.

@bendmeoverbackwards my eldest dd (17) can do basic cooking, pasta/sauces and so on but is mainly veggie and when cooking for herself she’s more than capable of feeding herself.
Dd2 (16) is very skilled in the kitchen.
I wasn’t really allowed in the kitchen to experiment as a teen, combination of my mum hating mess and also being skint so couldn’t really afford for me to be fucking up food. My dc are encouraged to get in the kitchen and have a go.
They do their own washing etc and are pretty capable of fending for themselves if needed.

@bendmeoverbackwards

Thanks all. To those who have left their’s at 16 ish, are they competent cooks?

DD16 cooks her own meals almost every night now as she wants freedom to choose her own food and not to be tied down to when DH and I eat, which can be up to 9PM depending on work.

She’s a good cook for her age, will happily cook pasta based stuff from scratch like carbonara, lasagne, chicken Alfredo etc. and some other things like salmon and veg etc.

She also regularly makes hot dog sandwiches and has the dominos app set up on her phone though so read into that what you will

As an aside I put the Uber app on her phone with my credit card so she can get around in an emergency. Would recommend doing this if you’re leaving them alone, just in case.